


Five Times (x3)

by trascendenza



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), DCU, Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-27
Updated: 2007-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Bruce met Jason White; Jimmy didn't know where to point his camera; Clark watched Bruce and forgot he was Batman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times (x3)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts by the_darkglow, jij, and _bluebells.

**Five Times Batman or Bruce Wayne met Jason White** (2007-04-27)

5\. Lois brought him to an interview. Bruce thought it was odd, but wisely said nothing.

4\. Clark invited him to the farm; the Whites were on their way out. By the time Martha and Clark had finished telling him about their day, he felt like he knew the boy.

3\. When he was fourteen, and just learning how to fly. Their collision was not a pretty one. (Bruce only felt mildly guilty about the swearing.)

2\. Bruce attended the wedding—Clark was so proud—and Batman guarded over the reception.

1\. The day he was born. Bruce hadn't known why he was monitoring Lois, until the day Superman returned.

**Five Times Jimmy Olsen Didn't Know Where to Point His Camera** (2007-05-03)

**Five.**

One time, he just happened to be heading the same direction as Clark (it wasn't following if you just wanted to see what was on the other end, in his opinion, and besides, Clark had an uncanny knack for knowing where Superman would appear next), and he stumbled on what looked like a clandestine rooftop meeting between Superman and Batman. Batman was perched in one dark corner (and looked remarkably like his namesake), while Superman was doing his cool half-hovering thing on the other side.

Of course, by the time his camera was up and focused, they were gone—had Superman winked at him or was he just imagining things?—which was just as well, he supposed, because he wouldn't have known which hero to point at first without offending the other.

**Four.**

Gotham gave Jimmy the creeps. He couldn't wait to find Lois and get on their plane this afternoon.

_No wonder there are so many criminals here_, he thought, noting all the dark looks he got from passerbys, so different from the courteous nods in Metropolis, _they expect nothing less._

"Will both of you just let me go!" he heard yelled at the top of someone's lungs (a very familiar someone, actually; he had that same irritated tone directed at him at least three times a day) in the distance. He skidded around the corner quickly to see what was happening.

Batman and Superman were both holding Lois Lane by one arm, suspended just in front of the fifth story of a high-rise; from the broken window ten stories up, it looked like she hadn't been practicing her skydiving.

"I've got her, _Batman_," Superman said, hovering closer to her as if to emphasize.

"Why don't you go back to your own city, boyscout," Batman growled, starting to haul her up the building with him.

"This is _insane_," Lois screamed, hitting Superman on the shoulder. "You get back to Metropolis and let him get me to the hospital. People there need you."

Superman seemed to hesitate.

"I won't tell you again." She glared, and he flew off.

Jimmy got two blurry photos of the whole thing: one, a streak of red and blue across the sky, the other, Lois traveling up the side of a high rise with a black shadow around her.

**Three.**

Metropolis was being shaken apart from the inside out, and from the rubble, heroes rose: the caped and the masked, the secret and the open. All came forth in the city's time of need, but what Jimmy noticed, and couldn't document, was all of them—from every walk of life, from jeans and a t-shirt to a black cowl to red and blue, heroes were painted in ever color and all of equal valor.

**Two.**

Suddenly, Bruce—whom he could have sworn was in his shot a second ago, all the way across the room—was standing right in front of him. He lowered the camera, a little embarrassed.

"What, you didn't want me over here for a close-up?" Bruce asked, and his smile was strange, a little predatory around the edges.

"Er, I was testing the light, you know, to…" Jimmy waved his hand, four years of photography school having just leaked out his brain, "see how much there was."

Bruce's smiled only worsened. "I see."

Jimmy, much to Perry's loud annoyance, didn't end up getting any shots of Bruce Wayne that night.

**One.**

This time, he was almost positive, they weren't aware of him, but he was far too aware of them: it wasn't every day you saw two of the world's least friendly superheroes… kiss.

Perry wasn't pleased with his artistic renditions of "Streetlamps of Metropolis," but they were some lines that Jimmy wasn't willing to cross, even for The Daily Planet.

**Five Times Clark Watched Bruce and Forgot He Was Batman** (2007-05-04)

5\. "YOU!" Bruce half-roared half-laughed, lunging at Alfred, sopping wet from the water balloon that Alfred had just _accidentally_ misplaced on top of his head.

4\. "I swear... I don't..." Bruce hiccuped and Clark actually heard the (mostly alcoholic) liquid shake in his stomach, "not since college." He passed out in Clark's lap; Clark stroked his hair with a smile.

3\. "Bruce Wayne," he leaned down with impeccable flourish and kissed the inside the Nadia's wrist, his eyelids dropping low as he made eye contact with her, "at your service."

Clark swallowed, and turned away, suddenly uncomfortable.

2\. The scariest part was that he _knew_ it was a costume. Had known about this job for quite some time, actually. But discussing it with Bruce on paper and seeing him in disguise were two totally different matters; the grease smudging his face and the rags hanging from his hunched frame disturbed Clark in a way he couldn't pinpoint.

1\. "_Goodnight_, Clark," Bruce said, directive clear in his upraised brows. Clark sighed, punching his pillow a few times, and went to sleep.

Three hours later, his internal alarm woke him up, as he'd planned. Moonlight streamed into the room in broken configurations, bathing them both in pale translucence; when he concentrated, he could still feel the echoes of sunlight in it. He thought of many things—how this would affect their professional relationship, how Bruce might be the first person that he was ready to talk to Jason about, how nothing had been the same since he'd come back and he wasn't sure how to cope with all of it, much less how he could pull someone else into the mess.

But most of all, he thought about the man behind the mask, the light that shone behind the black; and how if there was one thing he wouldn't regret from this night, it would be that Bruce trusted him enough to reveal it.


End file.
